Recycling Vocabulary in the Classroom

1
Recycling Vocabulary in the Classroom

• TESOL, San Antonio, TX
• Academic Vocabulary Activities that Promote
  Retention/Retrieval
• March 30, 2005
• Gerry Luton - University of Victoria - Victoria,
  British Columbia
• gluton_at_uvic.ca

2
The Importance of a Systematic Approach

• ESL Students see acquisition of vocabulary as
  their greatest source of problemsHowever,
  vocabulary is not dealt with sufficiently. some
  teachers cover some vocabulary, but this is
  hardly ever done very systematically. Vocabulary
  is something that everyone assumes that learners
  will somehow pick up, much the same way everyone
  assumes that students will just pick up good
  pronunciation.
• (Folse 2004)

3
Knowing a Word

• Knowing the word underdeveloped involves
• Being able to recognize it when heard
• Being familiar with its written form
• Recognizing its parts and being able to relate
  them to its meaning
• Knowing the particular meaning of the word
• Understanding it in a given context
• Knowing the concept behind the word which will
  allow understanding in different contexts
• Knowing that there are related words, such as
  overdeveloped, and backward
• Being able to recognize typical collocations
  (Nation 2001)
• And to this, for students in my classes, I would
  add
• Being able to use it in an original sentence,
  both spoken and written

4
Using Multiple Contexts

• Multiple contexts provide rich information on a
  variety of aspects of knowing a word including
  collocates, grammatical patterns, word family
  members, related meanings, and homonyms. (Nation
  2001)

5
Exercises Using Generative Processing to Recycle
Vocab

• Exercises to recycle vocabulary should include
  those which require both receptive and productive
  generative processing.
• Generative processing entails relating new
  information to prior knowledge.
• Regular gap-fill sentence exercises are an
  excellent way of recycling vocabulary through
  different contexts and can be used to broaden a
  students understanding of the range of meaning
  of vocabulary.
• He stabbed him in the stomach with a kitchen
  knife.
• The word may be interpreted as meaning to put a
  sharp implement into someones body for the
  purpose of harming him
• The child was stabbing the grapes with a
  toothpick and popping them in his mouth.
• The previous idea of meaning has grown to include
  putting a pointed object into something, not
  necessarily for the purpose of injuring it.
• The politician shouted and stabbed his finger
  into the air.
• The meaning has grown further to include
  thrusting something somewhat pointed intoair
• Her hurtful remarks stabbed him in the heart.
• The meaning now includes the figurative sense of
  causing psychological pain or injury, without the
  use of a concrete object.
• The most striking receptive generative uses of
  vocabulary are those where meeting the word in a
  new context forces the learner to reconceptualize
  the meaning that they previously had for that
  word.

6
Gap-fills

• Gap-fill exercises to recycle vocabulary can take
  various forms,
• such as
• A multi-word exercise with a number of sentences
  and words to choose from.
• Several different contexts for ONE word.
• Gap-fills with a list of the words given in root
  form students have to figure out the word and
  give the appropriate derivation.
• Crossword puzzles with sentences in context as
  clues.
• Language lab listening exercises.

7
Language Lab exercises

• Level 493C Language Lab 4
• Vocabulary Review ( /10)
• Listen to the following words and repeat after
  your handsome teacher
• accurately biased eliminated fluctuates
  genetic justifies outcome sectors
  triggered validity
• Fill in the blanks with the appropriate word from
  the list above.
• 1. ____________________ 6. ___________________
  _
• 2. ____________________ 7. ___________________
  _
• 3. ____________________ 8. ___________________
  _
• 4. ____________________ 9. ___________________
  _
• 5. ____________________ 10. ____________________

8
Recycling Vocabulary through Writing Speaking

• Learners need to be encouraged and have the
  opportunity to use vocabulary in speaking and
  writing where their major focus is on
  communicating messages.
• (Nation 2001)

9
Activities to Recycle Vocabulary through Writing

• Guided stories
• Relay races
• Journal writing
• Making Changes

10
Making Changes

• These exercises require students to process
  vocabulary by changing the part of speech of the
  sentence, by substituting words or by filling in
  a gap with an appropriate form of the vocabulary
  under study.
• Ex 1 Rewrite the following sentences with the
  word in parentheses.
• (contribution) A local businessman has
  contributed over a million dollars to be used in
  the construction of a new children's hospital in
  this city.
• Ex 2 Rewrite the following sentences using the
  word in parentheses.
• (available) You won't be able to get the
  apartment until the beginning of next month.
• Ex 3 Fill in the blanks with the appropriate
  form of the word in parentheses.
• (interpret) Your __________ of the data is
  somewhat different from my own.

11
Activities to Recycle Vocabulary through Speaking

• Productive generative processing involves
  producing new ways of using the wanted vocabulary
  in new contexts in speaking activities which are
  different from its use in the textual input.
  (Wittrock 1974)
• learning is aided when material is made
  concrete (psychologically real) within the
  conceptual range of the learners. This may mean
  giving personal examples, relating words to
  current events, providing experiences with the
  words, comparing them to real life, or better
  yet, having students create these images and
  relate the words to their own lives. (Sökmon
  1998)
• Quick discussions
• Proverbs Quotations
• Trivia
• Find someone who

12
Quick Discussions

• You can make topics for 3-minute warm-up
  discussions using vocabulary being studied. The
  students are in pairs and change partners after
  each topic. In this exercise, the students use
  the vocabulary in a meaningful context.
• Experience
• What things have you found it difficult to adapt
  to in this culture?
• Culture
• What is the most common symbol of your country,
  and what does it represent for you?
• Opinion
• Is violence justifiable in the battle for human
  rights?
• Personal
• How do you expect learning English will be of
  benefit to you in your life?

13
Proverbs, Quotations Trivia

• There is an African-American proverb which states
  that romance without finance don't stand a
  chance.
• John F. Kennedy once remarked that domestic
  policy can only defeat us, but foreign policy
  can kill us.
• The island of Greenland came under a) Denmark's
  b) Norway's c) Sweden's authority in the
  early 1800s.

14
Gerrys Vocabulary Teacher

• Features
• over 2,500 keywords
• derivations for each keyword
• a minimum of 10 contexts for each keyword
• more than 700,000 words of data
• includes the Academic Word List

15
Online Exercise Using Gerrys Vocabulary Teacher
with HotPotatoes - JCloze
16
Online Exercise Using Gerrys Vocabulary Teacher
with HotPotatoes - JMatch
17
Online Exercise Using Gerrys Vocabulary Teacher
with HotPotatoes JMatch click drag
18
Keyword entries also include (where possible)

• discussion questions
• find someone who questions
• proverbs from over 100 different cultures
• thousands of quotations from the famous not so
  famous
• interesting trivia
• interesting facts about history, countries of the
  world, world religions, and animals.
• all using the word under study.

19
Additional features

• allows you to add, delete and edit keywords and
  entries
• automatically generates a new document or will
  allow you to import the exercise into an existing
  document
• allows you to construct online exercises using
• JMatch and JCloze from HotPotatoes
• can be used to tailor-make exercises for students
  
• can be used to build exercises for each sublist
  of the AWL

20
Gerrys Vocabulary Teacherwww.cict.co.uk/software
/gvt

• Will allow you to update your database file as
  the program entries grow without you losing your
  own additions
• Current updates include sentences modelled on
  contexts taken from first year university
  textbooks from various disciplines.
• Single-user registration 25 / approx. US48 /
  Cdn58 / Euro 36
• Special educational multi-user licences
  available

21
Summary

• Recycle vocab continually throughout the session
• Provide exposure to multiple contexts
• Include practice with derivations
• Include activities which require generative
  processing, both receptive and productive
• Include activities which require students to use
  target vocabulary in speaking and writing
• Beat it to deathbut systematically and with
  awareness of purpose

22
Bibliography

• Folse, K. (2004). Vocabulary Myths Applying
  Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching.
  Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press.
• Nation, P. (2001). Learning Vocabulary in Another
  Language. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
• Newton, J. (1993). Task-based interaction among
  adult learners of English
• and its role in second language development.
  Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Victoria University of
  Wellington. In Vocabulary Learning and Speaking
  Activities by Angela Joe. Forum Online. (1996).
  34-1.
• Schmitt, N. (2000). Vocabulary in Language
  Teaching. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
• Schmitt, N., and M. McCarthy. (eds.). (1998).
  Vocabulary Description, Pedagogy and
  Acquisition. Cambridge Cambridge University
  Press.
• Sökmon, A. (1998). Current Trends in Teaching
  Second Language Vocabulary. In Vocabulary
  Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy, edited by
  N. Schmitt and M. McCarthy. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Wittrock, M. C. 1974. Learning as a generative
  process. Educational Psychologist, 11, pp. 87-95.
  In Vocabulary Learning and Speaking Activities by
  Angela Joe. Forum Online. (1996). 34-1.